Citizenship debate fails the substance test

If you needed any further evidence that so much of politics is about symbols over substance, I present to you the “debate” over Immigration Minister Peter Dutton’s tougher English test for aspiring Australian citizens.

Do the minister’s proposed changes, opposed now by Labor, represent a commonsense desire to ensure better integration of migrants to our country, or an unconscionable appeal to latent, inherent racism that supposedly lurks just below the surface of mainstream Australian society.

In truth, the answer is neither. Not that that’s prevented a confected fight with plenty of moral posturing.

Let’s be clear. There is nothing wrong with debating how migration changes our country, indeed it’s one of the most important debates we can have. And anxiety about that change is not inherently racist.

The Labor Party has agreed to block the citizenship bill in its current form

The West Australian

VideoThe Labor Party has agreed to block the citizenship bill in its current form

Australia can proudly claim to be among the small handful of successful experiments in building a cohesive, peaceful and open multi-ethnic, multicultural society.

As Australian journalist and demographer George Megalogenis wrote in the New York Times last year: “If you were designing a nation from scratch, it would look something like Australia”.

The mistake is to think we got here by accident. While every country has a portion of nativists hostile to immigration and immigrants, it is folly to overcompensate the other way and adopt a position advocated by some on the far-Left of effectively open borders.

Immigration debates have always been about where to draw — and redraw — the line.

Amid the current debate, it’s worth noting that the concept of Australian citizenship didn’t exist until 1949, a few years after the great post-war migration from Europe began.

In the first half of the last century, migrants could choose to naturalise and so become subjects of Britain and her monarchy.

It was Arthur Calwell’s call to “populate or perish” that ushered in the era of mass immigration to Australia that has more or less continued ever since.

The Internet reacts to Malcolm Turnbull's announcement about a tough new citizenship test.

The West Australian

VideoThe Internet reacts to Malcolm Turnbull's announcement about a tough new citizenship test.

Calwell’s imperatives were economy and security. They pretty much still are. He was anxious that citizenship “symbolise not only our own pride in Australia, but also our willingness to offer a share in our future to the new Australians we are seeking in such vast numbers”.

“These people are sure of a warm welcome to our shores,” he told Parliament during debate on the Nationality and Citizenship Bill. “They will no longer need to strive towards an intangible goal, but can aspire to the honour of Australian citizenship.”

Nearly 70 years later, who would disagree?

Of course, the line in Calwell’s day was drawn at “desirable” immigrants, with the assisted passage scheme (whose beneficiaries are otherwise known as Ten Pound Poms) designed to ensure a British dominance among the rest of the cohort of Italians, Greeks and Slavs.

Africans, Asians and Pacific Islanders could not apply for naturalisation, and the infamous dictation test, which an immigration official could administer in the European language of his choosing, were the essential features of the White Australia policy.

Over the years and as times changed, the line kept being redrawn, as our conception of the national interest evolved.

From the 1950s to 1970s, governments fretted about the lack of take-up of citizenship even by permanent residents of long standing. There were inquiries into why this was so, with policies developed to try to boost citizenship.

The prevailing view was that a migrant who chose to be a citizen as quickly as possible was most apt to feel a sense of loyalty and belonging to their adopted homeland, though there remained also an emphasis on homogeneity, which undoubtedly had a racial element. In 1969, it was made easier for non-British immigrants to become citizens by dropping residency requirements to just two years if they could read, write, speak and understand English proficiently.

Over the years and as times changed, the line kept being redrawn, as our conception of the national interest evolved.

The following decades saw the racial element of the country’s immigration program progressively liberalised (especially by Whitlam and Hawke) and in 1984 the English language requirement was slackened from “adequate” to “basic”.

In 2002, Australians were permitted to take dual nationality.

This progressive liberalisation began to reverse in 2007, when the Howard government introduced the citizenship test, 20 multiple choice questions designed to “encourage prospective citizens to obtain the knowledge they need to support successful integration into Australian society”.

Residence, good character, language ability, rights and duties of citizenship and the intention to live in Australia permanently have always been elements of Australia’s citizenship policies.

A new test which will ask migrants if it's okay to beat your spouse

The West Australian

VideoA new test which will ask migrants if it's okay to beat your spouse

This latest “debate” on English proficiency is another redrawing of the line. If you believed Tony Burke, the shadow immigration minister, Dutton is trying to take us back to Calwell’s day.

“A very large number of people who were born here will never reach the level of English (required) in this (new) test,” he said. “What sort of snobbery leads a government to say, ‘Unless you reach a university level of English we’d rather you weren’t here’?”

Oh, please. No one is getting kicked out of the country.

Dutton’s proposal would see aspiring citizens required to pass a tougher test, achieving a band 6 score on the International English Language Testing System, rather than the current requirement of a band 5 (there are 9 bands).

The IELTS website describes a band 5 score as a “modest user” of English who possesses “partial command of the language and copes with overall meaning in most situations”.

“They should be able to handle basic communications in their own field”.

Band 6 is a “competent user”, with “an effective command of the language, though with occasional inaccuracies, inappropriate usage and misunderstandings.

They can use and understand fairly complex language, particularly in familiar situations”.

This does not describe “university level English” — but it also begs the question about what problem Dutton is trying to solve, exactly.

English language proficiency for citizens is important surely for one reason: to enhance the citizen’s chances of living a successful, engaged life in their adopted home.

I’d like Dutton to provide one piece of evidence that shows how band 6 achieves that outcome where band 5 does not.

But that’s not the point. Rather, it’s another argument about symbols, not substance, a tactic to wedge an Opposition (bait taken) and bolster conservative credentials.